It is essential to provide plants with nutrients in order to promote plant health, strong yields and disease resistance. Examples of essential plant nutrients including carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, sulfa, zinc, manganese, copper, boron, molybdenum, nickel and chlorine. Each known nutrient applied in the form of a fertilizer systemically through liquid or dry powder spraying has a grade value known to the agricultural community which enables it to gauge the amounts of nutrients to employ in any particular situation. Underutilizing nutrients will fail to maximize the health and well-being of the agricultural product while overuse can be wasteful and potentially damaging.
Those versed in this field know full well the benefits of various nutrients. For example, nitrogen is a building block of plant proteins. It is an essential part of chlorophyll and a component of amino acids, nucleic acids and coenzymes. Phosphorus is used by plants to form the nucleic acid's DNA and RNA to store and transfer energy. Phosphorus promotes early plant growth and root formation and is essential to flowering and fruiting and the transfer of hereditary traits. Potassium is necessary for translocation of sugars and for starch formation. It is important for the efficient use of water through its role in opening and closing small apertures (stomata) on the surface of leaves. It increases a plant's resistance to disease and assists in enzyme activation and photosynthesis. Calcium provides building blocks for cell walls and membranes and must be present for the formation of new cells. It is a constituent of important plant carbohydrates, such as starch and cellulose. Calcium promotes plant vigor and rigidity and is important to proper root and stem growth. Magnesium is a component of the chlorophyll molecule and is therefore essential for photosynthesis. Sulfur is a constituent of three amino acids (cystine, methionine and cysteine) that play an essential role in protein synthesis. Sulfur is responsible for characteristic odors of plants such as garlic and onion. It is also essential for nodule formation on legumes. Zinc is an essential component of several enzymes in plants. It controls the synthesis of indoleacetic acid and is an important plant growth regulator. It is involved in the production of chlorophyll and protein and is taken up by plants as the zinc ion. Iron is taken up by plants as the ferrous ion and is required for the formation of chlorophyll in plant cells. It serves as an activator for biochemical processes such as the restoration, photosynthesis and symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Manganese is an accelerator for enzymes in plant growth processes and assists iron in chlorophyll formation. Copper is an activator of several enzymes in plants and can play a role in the production of Vitamin A, the deficiency of which interferes with protein synthesis. Boron regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates in plants and is essential for the process by which cells differentiate to form specific tissues. Molybdenum is taken up by plants in the form of molybdate ions which are essential micronutrients that enable plants to make use of nitrogen. Without molybdenum, plants cannot transform nitrate nitrogen to amino acids and legumes cannot fix atmospheric nitrogen. Chlorine is required in photosynthetic reactions. Finally, nickel is a component of the enzyme urease which is needed to prevent toxic accumulation of urea, a product of nitrogen metabolism in plants. The thrust of the present invention is to maximize the nutrient value of these various elements beyond that available by mere application of fertilizers which contain them.
The present invention makes use of colloidal micelles in the nanoparticle size range, generally from 1 to 500 nm. There have been others that have used nanoparticles for agricultural purposes albeit not to increase the value of any plant nutrient. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,638,994 teaches an aqueous suspension of an organic active ingredient in the form of a pesticide facilitating the controlled release of the pesticide. The patentee teaches that by controlling the size of a carrier of an active ingredient, namely, a pesticide, one can control the concentration of the active ingredient in a manner that is most environmentally friendly and economical. It is taught by the '994 patent that an aqueous suspension of nanoparticles with a pesticide enables one to design a controlled release of the pesticide.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a novel composition and method of producing it which increases the grade value of a plant nutrient beyond the grade value of that nutrient if the present invention was not employed.
These and further objects will be readily apparent when considering the following disclosure and appended claims.